Source: Wikimedia Commons
They stood everywhere. Drug stores, railway stations, bus depots, department store entrances, barber shops, amusement piers, five and dimes. A tall column, frequently white porcelain over cast iron,…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Anybody who was taken into a large American store before about 1960 remembers at least one version of it.
A clerk takes your money, writes out a slip,…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In a great many American families there is one photograph that is older than all the others and physically different from them. It is small, it is on…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
There is one in a great many houses, usually under a plant or a lamp. Cast iron frame with a scrollwork pattern, a wide flat treadle plate at…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The object itself is familiar enough. An oak cabinet, brass hinges and a brass latch, a compartment at the top for a block of ice, shelves below, a…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The lamp is a simple-looking object and almost every part of it is doing precise work.
A reservoir of fuel. A flat woven wick running down into it.…